One Hot Summer (21 page)

Marco kissed her.
‘
I’m sorry, my pet. I was hard on you. Women have a wisdom of their own about men, I suppose. Raf seemed a decent sort of fellow to me. It appears I was wrong. Come, cheer up and forget it now.’

‘Will
he do something dreadful to you?’

Marco gave a crooked grin.
‘I
shouldn’t be surprised. But these days men fight with business deals, not with cloak and dagger. So I daresay I shall be more than a match for Rafaello Alberghi, title or no title. Don’t worry any more. Your godfather and your mamma have explained to me clearly that I am cruel, unnatural, selfish, and stupid, so—’

From the shelter of his arms, Bianca turned on the others.
‘
He is nothing of the sort. Marco would be the nicest creature in the world if only he knew what it was like to be in love. And one day, even that
miracle may happen. Then you’ll see.’

Her mother held out her arms.
‘
Come, my sweet. Now all the trouble is over, it is time we all retired for the siesta. Marco, show my dear old friend to a room where he can rest, and later he will join us at tea. He dearly loves his English tea, I know.’

It was at this moment that Francesca, still in her pretty costume, appeared on the terrace and announced that the Signor Paolo Ricardo was at the gate and wished to speak with the Signore.

‘
Paolo
!’
shrieked Bianca, and flew across the garden towards the gate.

Marco scowled.
‘
The name is vaguely familiar. But why should he visit me here, and why should Bianca behave in that extraordinary way?’ Suddenly he clapped his hand to his head.
‘
My lord
!
The villain of the piece
!
’ He looked at Jan swiftly. ‘You knew about this?’

‘
Since yesterday. I’ve been expecting him any time this last half-hour, which is why my knees have been knocking together. He’s the man Bianca loves.’

‘
Is he indeed! How dare he come here
!’

‘
He’s in love, that’s why. He may be scared stiff of you as his chief, but out of the office hours he’s afraid of no one, where Bianca is concerned. So watch out, Marco. There are a pair, of them and together they’ll be more than a match for you.’

Marco smiled.
‘
Maybe. But I think I hold the winning card.’

‘
Don’t you believe it! Paolo does. Look
!’

Paolo and Bianca were coming across the garden hand in hand.

‘
Mamma—and Signor Bernini, this may be long and tiresome. If you would care to retire for the siesta?’

‘
Not a bit of it,’ said Bernini, re-seating himself.
‘
I haven’t had such an entertaining afternoon in years. It’s better than a performance of any opera at La Scala.
I intend to sit through the next act.’

‘
So do I.’ The Signora beckoned to Jan, who moved her chair into the shade of the palms and tucked a cushion cosily into the small of her back. ‘And mind you play it well, my son. I like the look of this young man.’

CHAPTER IX

Bianca was radiant. Clasping Paolo Ricardo’s hand, she presented him to her family, with an engaging pride and shyness.

‘
Marco already knows him, Mamma. He is a member of the staff, those Marco calls his bright young men. And this is my godfather, Paolo—Signor Orlando Bernini.

In his clothes, Jan decided, Paolo looked less impressive. But it was a good suit, well chosen for the occasion. He seemed a young man marked for success in that indefinable but not-to-be-mistaken way one often saw in medical students. This was an ordeal indeed, for him, to encounter the Cellini family all at once. But he seemed equal to it, and his manner was an acceptable blend of modesty and confidence.

‘
Did I send for you?’ Marco asked him distantly.

‘
No, sir. Nor did the Signorina. I came entirely uninvited, because I have something to say to you in private.’

‘
Very well, say it. In the circle of my family, I am in private. It is nothing my mother and our oldest friend cannot hear, I suppose?’

Jan shivered a little, feeling the chill of Marco’s attitude. He will not give one inch. He will act the part of the heavy father because he feels it his duty, but please don’t let him hurt these two too much. Bianca has taken as much as she can stand already, and happiness is so brittle a thing.
Please,
Marco, she wished ardently.

‘
Sir,’ Paolo’s voice was hoarse and he had to clear his throat,
‘
I wish to ask you for the honour of the Signorina Bianca’s hand in marriage. We love each other, and she tells me she is now free of her former
engagement.’

Marco tilted his head and looked at the younger man through lowered lashes.
‘
A strange coincidence
!
What would you have done, if she had not been free? The Conte came here today by chance. You couldn’t possibly have known. How is it, that as he leaves the stage, you enter?’

‘
I intended to come today,
signore,
because a man must do what he has to. As you say, it was a coincidence, and for me a fortunate one, that the Conte arrived today and Bianca was able to tell him she did not intend to marry him.’ He smiled down at the girl beside him.
‘
That’s all I know, sir—that she is free. My coming wasn’t arranged.’

‘
And you want to marry my sister? What have you to offer her?’

‘
Nothing,
signore,
except my love and my future.’

Marco glanced down at his own powerful hands.

‘Your future? That lies here, does it not? In my hands? Supposing you have no future?’

Bianca paled as the significance of the question reached her. But Paolo kept his eyes steadily on Marco.

‘
You have power, of co
u
rse. But there are other companies in Europe who can use my brains and my training—’

‘
The training I gave you?’

‘
Yes, sir. I am grateful for it, and I think you should make use of it, not throw it away for others to pick up.’

‘
You don’t think I should instantly dismiss you for impertinence?’

‘
That is for you to decide. I have made an honourable offer, but whatever you say, Bianca and I intend to marry. And where I go, she will go.’

Jan sighed suddenly. Marco was being hateful. He was deliberately goading Paolo.

‘
That sounds remarkably like blackmail,’ Marco drawled.

‘
It wasn’t so intended,
signore.
But you were trying to blackmail me, were you not?’

The tell-tale muscle moved in Marco’s cheek. Jan, observing it, knew he was close to losing his temper. But when he spoke, his tone was as suave as ever.

‘
Don’t be clever with me, boy. Bianca is not yet of age, and cannot marry without my consent. And don’t imagine you will win that consent by threatening to leave the company and find employment elsewhere. I have friends—and my friends have friends.’

Bianca blazed with fury.
‘
That’s not fair
!
Marco, you have no right to threaten like that! Mamma, tell him he cannot do it. Signor Bernini, dear sweet godfather, don’t just sit listening to him. Tell him how wicked he is.’

Bernini patted her hand. He had been following the conversation shrewdly.
‘
Marco knows what he’s doing, child. He needs no advice from me.’

The girl gave him a scathing look.
‘
You’re as bad as Marco. I believed you were more human. Mamma
?
’

The Signora sat erect, her calm features betraying no emotion.
‘
Marco is so like your papa, dear child. Let him be.’

‘
But he’s threatening Paolo. He mustn
’
t do that. If we love each other, we can’t help it. Paolo mustn’t be punished by having his career spoilt, and doors shut in his face all over Europe. I’d rather give him up than have him suffer like that.’

Paolo put an arm around her shoulder. 'Don’t worry. He can’t do it to me. He can only threaten. He has rivals who would be only too glad to get hold of one of his hand-picked high-flyers. That’s not my term for myself,
cara
—I’m not so conceited. But it's what men call us.’

‘
Never mind your future,’ Marco interrupted.
‘What
about the present? Am I permitted to ask where you met my sister? Not under my roof, that I do know.’

‘
It
was
under your roof,’ Bianca told him passionately.
‘
At the last dinner you held in Rome, for the group who had been to the Paris conference. Paolo was one of them. You said in your speech they’d all done brilliantly.’

Marco sat down, tilted back his chair and looked up at the couple who still stood side by side as though a powerful magnet held them together. As it does, Jan reminded herself. She was beginning to realise Marco was not getting all his own way in this encounter, and thought he knew it too.

‘
Oh yes,’ he nodded two or three times,
‘
I am prepared to admit that the Signor Ricardo is a brilliant young man, with an eye to his future. He is ambitious, too. Quick to take advantage of his opportunities, I think.’

‘
Well then—’ cried Bianca in triumph.
‘
You think well of him, so—’

Marco held up a restraining hand.
‘
Of his opportunities. Such as meeting the sister of the head of the Company. Young, impressionable, attractive, and
rich.
No, Bianca, let me finish. I admire a young man who can see so clearly that the quickest way to the top may not be by the sweat of his brow, but by hanging on to the skirts of a pretty girl who—’

‘
Signore
!’
Paolo sprang forward, bringing Marco to his feet. For a tense moment the men faced each other, not a pace between them. Paolo was breathing deeply, flushed with anger. Marco’s eyes were bleak, so cold as to be cruel.

Bernini broke up the confrontation.
‘
Come, come,’ he said easily.
‘
There are ladies here. Let us not quarrel. Signor Ricardo seems to have a good many qualities you admire, Marco, and our little Bianca is
obviously very much in love
—
’

‘
I don’t doubt it,’ Marco agreed. He broke into irritability for a moment, and snapped,
‘
For heaven’s sake sit down, both of you
!
You stand there like a pair of puppets. That’s better. What was I saying? Oh yes, that I don’t doubt Bianca’s love for a moment. Anyone can see she’s utterly infatuated.’

‘
Oh no,’ breathed his mother softly.
‘
I think she truly loves him, dear. Don’t be unkind to them,
caro
!
’

Thank you, Mamma,’ whispered Bianca.
‘
I didn’t know Marco could be so horrible. When Jan persuaded me to come home and talk to him—’

‘
I didn’t know either,’ Jan declared,
‘
or I’d never have suggested it. I thought he knew about justice. I thought he’d treat even an enemy with courtesy. I’m sorry, Bianca, I should have let you stay where you were, and play it your way.’

Marco swung round on his chair, and gave Jan a long, cryptic stare.
‘
So you are at the root of this, are you? I might have guessed. You knew all about this mysterious sweetheart, did you? Why didn’t you tell me?’

Jan felt herself flush, the hot tide rushing up her throat and burning up to her forehead.
‘
I—I promised I wouldn’t.’

‘
Promised who? Bianca?’

‘
Not Bianca—Paolo.’

‘A guest in my house? And conspiring with a stranger against me? Keeping vital information from me, which you knew I needed? Indeed, for which I specifically asked you. You said—’ his hand outstretched towards her, he snapped finger and thumb together.
‘
I remember—you said the secret was not yours to tell.’

She nodded miserably. He looked desperately unhappy, and the guilt of having deceived him, as in a way she had, weighed heavily on her.

‘
You have a strange sense of loyalty,
signorina
.’
He returned to his examination of Paolo.
‘
So you paid attentions to my sister, did you? And no doubt met her elsewhere in Rome, without my knowledge?’

‘
Once, in the Farnese Gardens. To say goodbye, sir.’

Marco’s brows rose in question.
‘
And all this love, all this passion and fury, comes from that one meeting —to say goodbye?’

‘
No, sir. We discovered we could not do it. I admit it was wrong,
signore
,
to
continue without your knowledge. Foolish, perhaps, not wrong. I came to the island many times, and we met on your private beach.’

‘
Santa cielo
!
On my very doorstep! You have the impudence of the devil, young man! You had no right to see her again.’

‘
He had every right,’ Bianca cried passionately. ‘Don’t you
see
? Are you so blind, Marco? If you knew yourself what it is to love, you’d understand that when two people love each other as we do, anything —anything at all which keeps us apart, must be wrong.’

‘
I told you,’ her brother said quite gently,
‘
that I don’t doubt your love for him, sister
cara
!
It is not beyond the power of any young Italian worth his salt to gain the love of an impressionable and inexperienced girl.’

‘
You’re wrong! Rafaello Alberghi could not do it.’ Jan spoke her thought aloud and could have kicked herself for doing so. Already in Marco’s black books, she ought to have had more control. But Bianca flashed her a grateful glance.

‘It is my love you doubt?’ Paolo demanded stiffly.
‘
I have taken no advantage,
signore
.
Love does not come by command. I should have loved Bianca. at first sight whoever she was. If there is any way in which I can prove my love to your satisfaction—’

‘
You don’t have to.’ Bianca leaned across and pressed his hand fondly.
‘
I am the only person concerned, and I know you love me.’

Her brother relaxed enough to give her an affectionate smile.
‘
If you are so sure,
cara
,
you won’t mind his being asked to prove
it?’

‘
I am not afraid.’